Identifying and Controlling Hazards
Course 101
Safety Certified Supervisor Series

MODULE TWO: HAZARD CATEGORIES

Four Cause Categories (MEEE)

1. Safety Management System (SMS)

2. Employee Performance

Supervisors support their employees by supporting a touch-caring approach to safety. Supervisors need to insist employee use safe procedures and practices so no one gets hurt. It's that simple. When this approach is not evident, employee performance may not be safe or appropriate. Employee performance failures includes possible areas of concern:

• Personal factors: When a worker is, for some reason, unable to perform safely. They may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, concerned about a family member, fatigued, or for some reason physically/ mentally unable to perform a task. Supervisors need to make sure their employees are capable and willing to work safely.
  
  
• Unsafe employee behavior: An employee may choose to use unsafe procedures and practices. For example, an employee decides not to put on eye protection while working at a grinder. Supervisors must create a tough-caring culture that reduces the likelihood that employees will make poor choices.
  
  
• Inappropriate manager/supervisor behavior: Managers or supervisors may choose not to carry out safety policies and procedures. They may actually direct employees to perform in a way that increases stress or the probability of an injury. Require safe work practices and conditions in the workplace. As an example, a supervisors might fail to conduct initial safety training. When supervisors apply inappropriately pressure, employees may actually be trapped into using work procedures or short cuts that could get them hurt.

An example of being trapped might be a situation in which the employee is expected to perform equipment maintenance, but lacks the lockout/tagout devices to properly isolate the equipment. The employee is, therefore, trapped for forced to use unsafe procedures. That is, unless the supervisor identifies and corrects the problem before the employee begins the procedure.

Remember, a hazardous conditions can be thought of as an unsafe "state of being." Employees who are in hazardous states are more likely to engage in unsafe behaviors. Workers who take unsafe short cuts, or who are using established procedures that are unsafe, are accidents waiting to happen.